


Jerk

by S_IRIS



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Bullying, Not Beta Read, Other, POV Minor Character, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Canon, Unilock, mentions of hazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 19:44:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2480171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_IRIS/pseuds/S_IRIS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Wilkes thinks about contacting his uni mate Sherlock Holmes for an unofficial investigation into the flaws of the security of the Shad Sanderson bank. As he writes the email, he goes into his past. . .</p><p>Rated Mature for mentions of hazing and bullying and a little violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jerk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phosphorescent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phosphorescent/gifts).



> For Phosphorescent, and for her really believable one shot about a peek into a minor character. Which one, read her "[Freak](http://archiveofourown.org/works/925202)" to find out.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock and don't wish to, otherwise it would've been a complete disaster.
> 
> I do own the idea for this one shot but not for everything that happens in there

I usually work late. I mean it's like a routine for me, completing my work, racing against the sun beginning to peek over the towering concrete buildings that make up the city. How the night passes, I don't recall. The only indication that I had been working overtime is the persisting ache in my neck and my shoulder muscles. Which reminds me, I have been postponing that appointment with my doctor since last week. Rich says that it might be spondylitis. I get the sinking feeling that I'm growing old.

I tell myself that I'm not. It's just working late. I have to work late, but not in the office, mostly in my own home, passing my progress back and forth from San Francisco because most of my time goes away in meetings and dinners. The time difference between the two places isn't much, and yet it gets me the oddest hours of sleep, or a little nap in my car at the worst. My driver is trustworthy, but I can hardly trust anyone these days. People say bankers are paranoid. What people say seems to be right for the first time.

Like now, there's been an incident at the bank. Shad Sanderson, that's where I work, and the matter is being treated extremely delicately. My boss, that's the chairman of the bank, is anxious to avoid any sort of police investigation into the matter. Of course, where the bank security is involved, we cannot have the press to know about it and make people do a bank run like in Mary Poppins. But the thing is, once it gets out into the police, or even the Scotland Yard chaps, it goes over the world. One can only imagine what an epic disaster that would be.

And being my boss, that somehow gives him the right to demand some most unreasonable things of me. He tells me— _good heavens, Wilkes. If there's anyone who can sort this out, it's you!_ I know that by consistently outshining my bosses' expectations, I've somehow formed the impression that I am invincible, but I'm no detective! I don't even know how the bloody security system works!

And that's when he comes to my mind.

We were at uni together, Sherlock and I. He was a science undergrad, and I in commerce and international relations, that sort of thing. We shared dorms for the first year. I swear, he was the weirdest chap I had ever met. Everything about him was weird and eccentric, not in a good way, of course. His name, his public-school accent, his language, everything.

And that trick, of course. Where he could tell anything by some mud or some stain what you had been doing a month ago.

And of course, his lack of sense of when to say what. Fine, you want to say that I slept with some girl. You don't have to say it in front of everyone. You don't have to say it in front of my professor or my brother. You could tell me that in private and maybe I'd applaud your _deductions._

I wonder, what he must be doing right now. We had this reunion thing in Caius a couple of months back. I met lots of people from my year, most of them married, some of them divorced and a very few as successful in life as I was. He wasn't there at all. He hadn't bothered to come.

The last I had heard of Sherlock Holmes was that he had withdrawn from Caius College because of some drugs scandal from whose glare he had narrowly escaped. I don't know whether he graduated or not. I hope he did. He was weird, like freakishly weird, but he was a good chap. Well, sort of, if you didn't count the number of breakups he had caused. If there was anybody supposed to be there in that sea of people I had met during reunion who deserved to graduate with Honours, it would be him. The guy was really consistent, he was very sincere with his academics. The drugs thing, though, very bad. I had changed my dorms as soon as I found out about him being on coke, and as I immersed myself in Economic History, I lost touch with him.

I wonder. Should I contact him? I mean, I was one of the guys who used to join in for verbal abuse. Some of the boys literally made his life a living hell. I can't blame him for going on drugs because of that, but it was not that. I don't think so. He was like this guy who was above us all, seeing all, knowing all, impertinent, rude. Like nothing that we said to him could hurt him at all. That simply made the other boys want to hurt him even more.

Would he reply back? We did hurt him, but he wasn't hurt at all. That simply infuriated us. That infuriated me.

But then they were slightly afraid of him. Even I was, I admit. The chap was a boxer, a really, _really_ good one. One punch to the shin, and we'd be hospitalised for eternity. Once, I remember, there was this thing in the halls. Ten guys singlehandedly attacked him. I was one of them. I don't know how I looked at myself in the mirror back then. But I still feel that the kicking he got was justified. He never dared to out his "deductions" at us after that. Perhaps he had thought over it for the one month he stayed in bed rest.

Or if not physical, he could get verbal as well. He said all the bad things that we concealed under the umbrella of lies. He could be a bully. A really bad one. I mean, he never thought about how we felt when he let it slip to our girlfriends that we were cheating on them! We hated him, but of course, the hot-bloodedness of youth is all gone now.

But I think, I might have forgiven him for his wrong-doings. . . has he forgiven the lot of us too?

I shake my head. Why won't he? Only an over-sentimental puppy dog would still cry over it. He was nothing like that, was he? Plus he loved this sort of thing, puzzles and all. It would be good. I'd get his services and he'd get his puzzle. It's just business after all.

As I boot my laptop, I sink into deep thoughts again. He used to taunt the subjects that I took. He said that he saw no point studying economics or business studies. It would've been okay if he was a friend. I'd have shaken it off with a laugh if a friend said that. But this guy. . . did I ask him for his opinion? Did I fall on his feet and chant _His Holiness Sherlock Holmes, please tell me if my subjects would be relevant in the real world when I get out there?_ The thing was that at first he used to treat a person like shit, and then the next day, he'd be with them like he was their bosom friend, like everything offending he said ought to be passed off as a joke.

I ignored him mostly. I called him a freak and told him to buzz off. He used to go quiet after that, so we knew that it was our mantra to get him to be quiet.

Friend. When I see Sherlock Holmes' face with a caption of 'friend' under it, I feel like I can laugh all night. That guy can never have friends. Never ever. There's no guy in the world who'd tolerate his pompous manner for longer than a month. I should be in Guinness Book for World Records for sharing a dorm with him for an entire year.

I load Outlook and pause. I've not seen him for eight years. I heard somewhere that he was a consulting detective or something. Got clean and set up his life around. I can't imagine how he managed to become a detective. I mean, yeah, he had an inclination towards all that, but being a detective would mean _co-operating_. The big key word. He was alone. He worked alone, his projects, assignments, all that. Always alone. Detectives usually need a sidekick sort of guy, like Hastings was for Poirot.

Nevertheless, I make a quick search of him on Google. Find his website called the Science of Deduction. Sort of name that only a geek would keep. He hadn't changed, I thought with some sort of glee and some old irritation resurfacing. I feel a strange restlessness within me. I don't know whether it was because I was going to meet Sherlock Holmes again. Our first first meeting had been as eccentric as a meeting could be. I could only wonder how our second first meeting would be like.

I can only think back to that night, the night when I had first come to the halls and checked my name on the bulletin board. Dorm number C-12, with my name and roll number, and William Sherlock Scott Holmes' name and roll number. I had read only William and not bothered to go past the 'S' of Sherlock. He hadn't arrived so I went to the bed adjacent to the window and began to think of how to best use the room for my needs before my roommate arrived.

It could easily have been the most demeaning night of my life. Back then, there weren't strict rules against hazing in universities as there are now. Hazing was, in fact, considered a tradition. Even I had been involved in some light hazing during my senior year. Of course, if I had been forced to do things at the command of my seniors, why should the freshmen not face it too?

Sherlock hadn't arrived even then. I was only settling into my bed after the dinner with a novel, when there was a loud authoritative knock on my door. I had simply assumed that 'William' had arrived, otherwise I'd never have opened the door. There had been some noise outside, but I had simply assumed that it was just guys lounging around in the common room or just acquainting with each other.

I opened the door to find myself face to face with a hefty guy in a 'I Heart My City' shirt. I frowned at him a bit. He was a senior, I had seen him in the hall during dinner. He looked incredibly grouchy about something.

"Out," was all he said. I didn't dare disobey. I wasn't stupid.

Soon I recognised many of them, the freshmen who were with me in the hall during dinner. There was something incredibly off about the way the seniors were leering at us all.

I try to close my eyes. It is, still, the most humiliating thing I have experienced in my life. Something that Sherlock had rebelled against and proved to be successful. That's what earned him the title 'freak'. I don't deny it either. If he only made an effort with people, he'd have been a great guy to be with.

But I still am dubious as to my last remark.

I feel my fingers trembling with the terror I had felt back then as I type in his name—Sherlock. It still tastes the same in my mouth, the way it tasted when I first uttered it and he had only fixed me with a look that had made me think whether he had Asperger's.

I find his email address and I type out an email.

_Sherlock-_

I go back and delete it. It sounds very informal. I wasn't his friend. And he most certainly didn't consider me to be one. What should I write? Mr. Holmes? Sherlock Holmes? Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes?

I shake my head. I'm not writing this as a client. Well, I am. But above that all, I'm pulling in a favour from a long since uni-mate, only one I remember clearly amongst all the pressures of life. We did share digs. I'd do at least that for my roommate.

I type again.

_Sherlock-_

I still remember that night. The cool air from the thunderstorm during the previous night stung my worrying skin like a slap when we heard what one of the seniors said.

"Take your pants off and get stamped," the most bossy one of them said with a smirk on his face, They were all laughing at us like a hunter did when he cornered the wounded animal. A campus tradition, on Day 1. . . freshmen must pay their respects to their seniors in their underwear.

We had to. There was no choice. There were boys of second and third year smirking at us. It was still light, one of them said. Some of the more adventurous ones were asked to do worse things.

When none of us took initiative, one of them called one of us forward. When the boy simply looked down, his head hung low in shame, one of the seniors simply pissed on him. The other laughed. I found this somewhat funny when I did it. But not when someone did it to a mate of mine.

"Wet pants. . ." he tutted, causing all of us to take our trousers, jeans, whatever, off. We were still spared. We weren't asked to parade around naked or blow our mates or wank off in front of them. We weren't pissed upon like that poor chap who later committed suicide out of shame. We weren't asked to imitate James Bond while wearing a non-custom underwear with the Union Jack printed on it. We were only asked to say. . .

"Your Majesty, thou art great. Accept this humble offering."

I could hear the seniors patting our arses one by one appreciatively, passing one or two punchlines too. I could see them stamping something on the left butt cheek of every one of my new uni mates.

"Ha. . . here's a He-Man. . . Oh, what a pretty piece. Cute and compact. Here, stamped Checked-OK!"

I felt the air sting my buttocks when he stamped me. I gritted my teeth. I had never felt more humiliated. I wondered if I could look at myself in the mirror without thinking of this. My pants were on the floor, my head held low as if I was a slave and my dignity spilled into nothingness.

That's when I first saw Sherlock.

He was striding in merrily with a backpack, a portmanteau and his bookbag, as if humming a little tune to himself. His curly hair in disarray over his head. His jeans way too loose for him. Completely unaware of what was happening in the halls.

I wanted to signal him with my eyes, implore him to leave before the seniors caught him too. But of course, I didn't know him then otherwise I wouldn't have said a word and let him walk into the trap. The guy looked so happy that I didn't have the heart to see it crushed a second later. He stopped short when he saw me, and countless others. I could see that the chap was baffled by what was going on.

I was scared to say anything. So I didn't.

But before he could realise the situation and turn around and walk away, the seniors caught sight of him and giggled delightedly.

"Ah-ha! Fresh meat. Hello, kiddo. Drop your pants, get stamped," they chanted, circling him. I took the opportunity to stand up and pull my pants up a little. I didn't come to Cambridge for this.

"Name? Ah, William Sherlock Scott Holmes. What a mouthful of moniker!" they laughed when they saw his name in the name tag of his luggage, while he continued to scrutinize them with dislike evident in his face, "Needs serious cramming, fellas. Will get it right by the final year, won't ya?!"

I could see Sherlock gulping as they handed him back the tag and patted his shoulder.

I still remember that face, and I think back. That is the only time we had seen him scared. Even when he was attacked by ten fully grown men, he wasn't that scared. I wonder what to write next. Should I ask him about how he is? This is just plain business for me, but I don't want to come across as that. Five figures would be more than enough for him, of course. But then he was always an odd guy. Never really cared about money.

_Remember me? Your old buddy, Sebastian, from Caius?_

I go back and delete that. I wasn't a "buddy" buddy. I was intrigued by him in the beginning, but then I realised that all that glittered was not gold. Even though a banker is supposed to believe that at times, I really don't believe in that. I measure things in terms of carats, not in terms of their shine.

"Come on—pants off," said the senior, stroking his chin and ruffling his hair. "Don't be stubborn now!"

The senior gritted his teeth and grabbed his water bottle. He slid his fingers into the waistband of Sherlock's trousers and poured down water down his pants. He just stared at them like a lost puppy, and I felt so sorry for him, the only time I ever felt sorry for him, but at least he wasn't being pissed upon. And his condition was better than mine at least.

"Wet pants not good, kiddo," they blew air-kisses at him, "Take them off."

Sherlock's fingers trembled as he slipped his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and stared at something into the distance. I followed his gaze, as did everyone. And when we looked back, he had disappeared into my dorm. It was then that I recalled that the bloke was my roommate.

_How're things, buddy?_

I write in my email to him, because it's the most sensible thing to write to a guy who was a total jerk to you. I am a jerk. I always have been a jerk. It's my ability of being a total arse that has got me this far. That's how we bankers and traders are supposed to be.

But he was a bigger jerk. He winded me up for the smallest of reasons. I'd lash out at him when I was angry because he was an easy target as long as I didn't try and break some bone of his. I never dared touch him, afraid that I'd land up in ER fighting death. Sometimes I came close to hating him. Why did he have to know everything? Why did he have to misuse his X-Men like ability to bully others?

Now, when I remember, I did hate him a little. Still do. But it seems so irrational, so immaterial now. It would be just a business transaction with an old face, mutually beneficial. Nothing more.

_Been a long time since we met up, yeah?_

I laugh at that. He never "met up". We all preferred to keep him away, and he gave every indication that even he didn't want to be included. It was an unspoken agreement.

Nevertheless, I write that. I know him much better than most of those at uni. He'd scoff and he'd continue reading. He's narcissistic. He'll want to see how I'm doing.

When Sherlock fled to our room, C-12, of course, the seniors rushed after him. No one defied their authority, or else their lives were made a living hell. It hadn't been even one hour and William Sherlock Scott Holmes had made himself their sworn enemy.

"Hey, come out of there!" the senior bellowed, "or else I'll piss on your door." I felt low, lower than the entire morning. I wished for William to come out and just let himself be stamped and get on with the hazing instead of the senior pissing on our door. But something told me, that they would beat him to a pulp the moment he got out of there.

But he proved to be really stubborn. I looked around. Many other seniors, who refused to participate in hazing, came out to see what the noise was all about. The others tittered, laughed, hooted whistled as the senior continued to assert his dominance over us all. We simply watched quietly in thrill, in fear, in anxiety. Whoever he was, he was still our mate, at least until then. What was going to happen?

William Sherlock Scott Holmes was dead meat.

"If you don't come out by the count of ten. . . I'll piss on your door all Michaelmas term."

Still no response. I wondered what he was doing. He was probably not taking the threats seriously. He never did. He pushed a person till their last breaking point until they snapped and drove him away. He did things like that. He deserved that all the time.

But that night, if he hadn't done what he did on that night, I might have been so consumed by shame and humiliation that I might have hanged myself to death.

"One!" the senior roared, banging furiously on his door, and I began to look around for my shirt. I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt for the stamp on my hinder and I gritted my teeth.

He counted till nine. One of the more jovial ones of us let out a snort and the senior turned around, nostrils flaring like that of an angry bull.

With a finality, he declared the ultimatum, "Ten." He leaned in closer to the door, and we could see him beginning to piss on my door.

What happened next is blurry because of the speed with which it happened, but it is still clear as a red light in a dust bowl in my memory. One moment, the senior was peeing on the door, and the next moment, there was an ear-splitting shriek of pain. The next thing I saw was that the senior clutching his privates, massaging between his legs and flailing his legs, screaming the name of every relative on the earth. He looked like he had been struck by lightning.

I resume typing. The next part is easy. It's a short description of the problem.

_I hear on the grapevine that you're now a consulting detective. There's been an 'incident' at the bank-something like a break-in in Shad Sanderson._

Then came out Sherlock, with a iron ruler and a wire entwined around it which led all the way to the main circuit of our room. He wore gloves in his hand. Every one moved away, in fear of him, in awe of him, the freshman who could electrocute his senior's privates. He held the iron ruler as a sort of a weapon and everyone, the seniors included, moved away to let him take his water bottle back.

Salt water is a great conductor of electricity. Year eighth physics. We had studied it. He applied it.

That is how I know Sherlock Holmes. Nerd to the point of being frightening and destructive with his knowledge. Freak, outcast, science geek.

For our part, we were delighted to see the smartarse senior groaning on the floor. For everyone else's part, Sherlock Holmes was someone they were going to pick up on and teach a lesson for every single remaining day of his miserable life.

I felt sort of frightened to be roomed with such a guy. I wore insulated underwear to bed every night, hoping he didn't come and zap my balls one day when I was sleeping.

That was what it became. Picking on Sherlock Holmes was a fashion. The more we hated him for rebelling and challenging the various societal norms, the more he kept up with his own brand of his expression of his animosity towards us.

_I'm hoping you can sort it for me._

I wonder if that is appropriate. Then I think, it probably doesn't matter to him. He's only brains, no heart. I keep writing like a jerk, because that's what I learnt from him. Be a jerk.

_Please call by. Needless to say, I'll be relying on your discretion._

_Sebastian_

I pause here. He probably won't remember me. Why would he? I wasn't as all-knowing and intelligent as he, and as he declared, he had limited space in his "hard drive". Sometimes, his language was so robotic that I wondered whether under that skin, there were wires and metal running over metal.

Sebastian Wilkes would be more appropriate.

I place my mouse pointer near Sebastian, and add a _Wilkes_. Before I can think more about him, I send the mail. Too much Holmesian thoughts for a day.

-

-

I go through my day like I always do. I have a meeting along with the Board of Directors by eleven am, where I decide which employees I want fired, since I'm supposed to have closest contact with them. How different, this power, the power I've always had since sophomore year, over freshers, over my little brother, over my employers and employees. If there's one thing Sherlock Holmes has taught me, it's how to be a complete and utter indifferent bastard. It's got me this far. It'll get me farther.

I haven't married till now. My relationships aren't very stable. I had an affair with my personal secretary, who I fired when she began to demand money to raise our child. I scoff. _Our_ child. I'm not a father just because I fathered one even if I wore a condom. I'm not a parent.

 _Our_ child. A child has no place in my life.

I'm still counting on Sherlock Holmes to drop by, or even call by. I hope he does. I don't want this to go to the police. And I don't want _him_ to go to the police. He does that sort of thing, publicise facts meant to be kept hidden. He's a loose cannon. I'll keep him on a leash this time.

At two thirty, right after my lunch, I settle for a power nap of seven and a half minutes in my office. Time is of utmost priority. I can't waste my time for unproductive activities like tying the knot of my tie or buttoning my shirt. My ties have hooks and my shirts have Velcro. That saves time.

After that, I meet up for another business deal in the Strand. It has been almost five hours since I sent that email to Sherlock Holmes. I check my inbox. No reply. I don't expect him to. Knowing him (and assuming he hasn't change), he won't bother to announce his arrival. He'll drop straight by.

"Hi, I'm Sebastian," I had said, a little wary of him when I had woken up the next day and seen him curled up in his duvet with the weirdest book I have seen. I don't remember the title, but it was a yellow paperback one and was something related to crime.

"I'm Sherlock. Hello."

He went back to his book, leaving me hanging on. I blinked and just uttered his name. He looked at me with record speed and just. . . stared.

I knew something was wrong with him. He was one of those freaks.

I had always thought that he was either asexual or celibate. When the guys used to talk about girls and pussies at breakfast, comparing how much they got last night, he wouldn't join into the conversation. We thought that he was gay at first, but then I once saw him watching porn on his laptop. He could've been watching a science fiction movie, the way he was watching. He wasn't wanking off to it, neither was his breathing catching as the girl bounced on the guy's cock. He slept in the bed nearest to the door and I happened on him because I wasn't feeling well.

I have never seen a man more embarrassed. He wasn't enjoying it at all. His face was stony. He simply cleared his throat and closed the lid of his laptop. He looked at me as if he pleaded me not to use it as blackmail material. I couldn't, of course. In the halls where you rarely got to see a girl, watching porn was a regular thing.

I rolled my eyes, "You even know what porn is?"

He blinked and looked away, "I heard that men liked it a lot. I decided to try it."

It was awkward. Good Lord, it was. Me and the freak talking about pornography of all things. And hearing that this was the first time he was watching porn. I decided not to ask. My head was already hurting like nine kinds of hell.

"I didn't find it all very realistic," he declared, "that is not how intercourse happens. A girl never "begs" for—"

"Shut up, freak!" I cried out, unable to take the headache, "some of us are trying to have rest here!"

He did shut up. I used "freak" a lot because it shut him up most effectively.

If it was some other guy, I'd have thought twice before saying that. Or even apologised for my outburst. But there was no guilt when I called Sherlock Holmes a freak. He was, actually. He knew that, and we all knew that. And it never affected him. Because nothing affected him and we need not worry about his feelings because he doesn't have feelings.

I turned my back to him, feeling sleep overtaking me.

-

-

The meeting is successful. The company general managers are willing to invest their stocks in our bank. I get the recent stock updates from the exchange in Frankfurt and Hong Kong. Eddie is absent. I check up with his schedule. He doesn't have any trips to Asia for another week. Eddie absent is unprecedented.

I take another power nap in my car. I have to prepare to work till four am. Twelve hours laid out in front of me. Twelve hours to be spent without sleep or rest.

When we were in university, Sherlock never used to sleep. My habit of power naps goes back to my time in Caius. I took a nap before my last class from six to seven. Sherlock had a different schedule, but I knew he didn't sleep, if one had to "deduce" from the dark circles under his eyes. No one knows how insecure I felt, knowing that my insane, abnormal, probably schizophrenic roommate was awake, ready to try out anything on me. This is the sort of fear in which I spent the last months with him.

And then, of course, I found out about the drugs and the reason he sometimes didn't return to the dorms. And I applied to be shifted to some other rooms. And that was it.

I feel somewhat weird writing him as a buddy in the email. I was one of them who sent him to hospital for a month, although he deserved it, of course.

I wish I could un-send the email. Eight years of separation has somehow blurred my memories of him. The part where we knew with all our heart that he was a machine has faded away slightly. All the hatred, all the animosity, all faded into nothingness. The memory of our first meeting is still as potent as ever.

-

-

I'm up till half-past five in the morning. My eyes are blurry with sleep, but I keep taking coffee shots as I engage myself in a video conversation with one of our sales executives in Singapore. My inbox is open beside the messenger dialog box. I remember that he doesn't sleep.

When I'm off the line and go to grab a few precious hours of sleep, I feel a distracting buzz which doesn't let me rest. I want to see what Holmes has made out of this "consulting detective" business. Whether he's more successful than I have been. Funny name, consulting detective. Mouthful of moniker, I remember with a snort.

I go back to his nerdy website. I skip past his narcissistic introduction of himself and his analysis of tobacco ashes. How can one person still be the same throughout all these years? Once a freak, always a freak.

He doesn't write about his trick, though. Keeps it secret like most magicians do.

That's all there is about him on the web. I smirk. Nowhere as successful as I am. I live on the 31st floor, I can see the clock face of Big Ben from my window. I have four bedrooms in my flat, en-suite bathrooms in each and every one of them. I've been flying all around the world, twice a month. I have a life.

He's still a freak. With his oh-so-clever subjects versus my boring ones.

Sleep overtakes me. I never want to sleep thinking of Sherlock Holmes again.

-

-

I'm in office by ten. Five hours of sleep are more than enough for me, I decide. I'm used to three on bad days.

I have a small conversation with the chairman. I tell him that I have taken my steps.

In another hour, it'll be almost twenty four hours since I have sent Holmes that email. I tell myself that it won't be awkward. I try to bring in my old memories, where I treat Sherlock as a man without sentiments, and I tell myself that it will be okay contacting him for a case after eight long years of not seeing him.

I'm going through the schedules of my employees, while my eyes are on the security system of the trading floor, when my new assistant comes in and tells me that Sherlock Holmes is here.

I almost jump out of my chair in. . . is it the joy of finally getting an important problem resolved, or is it the nostalgia of my youth? Sherlock Holmes knows me better than my mother probably does. What would he look like? Would he still have that ginger-ish auburn curly hair, still that fit physique, lean athletic body with muscles and ribs sticking out?

I control my actions. I decide the handshake I'm going to give him.

It's a business deal. I'm taller than him but I don't want to dominate. For once, I want him to feel at ease and concentrate on the problem rather than our entwined, ill pasts. I have to bend down a little, while still letting him understand that I keep the leash in _my_ grip.

The politician's handshake would be the best, I think.

I go out, like a busy man. It must be evident how happy I am to see him again. His hair has darkened with the passage of time, and he looks shorter and healthier than he was in university. His face is glowing too, he extends a hand towards me, smirking a little.

"Sherlock Holmes!"

"Sebastian."

He hasn't changed much.

I grip his hand with fervour. There's warmth in his eyes, but the handshake is cold and firm, and bordering on attempting to dominate. I grip our entwined hands in my left hand, taking the control back in my power.

He has forgiven, forgotten everything. But I don't let him, or myself, go back to those sweet nostalgic moments of being called freak or psycho in uni.

"Hiya buddy. How long—eight years since I last clapped eyes on you?"

His smile fades a little at "last clapped eyes". Our last encounter had definitely not been very nice.

I don't look at him for long. I want to send him mixed signals. I know how he works. He's like an antennae. Give him conflicting signals and he mucks up. I want him to focus on what I want him to focus, so I lead our conversation to his companion.

My focus is on my ex-roommate instead of his charming ~~friend~~ colleague. There's some awkwardness, some reminiscence.

I smirk to myself. And return back to being a jerk. Jerk to the man who taught me to be one.


End file.
